kat-thealienpoetry

[kat-thealienpoetry]

May 3rd, 2025

I don’t belong

I don’t belong

My body hurts

And my soul is burning

My heart is hurting

I am so far from everything I’ve ever known

But this is what I wanted

To be far away from the places that broke me

To be far away from the people that hurt me

But I never did grasp

That it meant leaving behind the people who grew with me

The people who held me close to their hearts as I let them into mine

And I do not belong anywhere

I don’t belong

I don’t belong

I cannot write, I do not paint,

Not anymore

It’s all too heavy

My bones ache for the longing of familiarity I’ve left behind

My bones ache with the decay of a body failing me too young

I do not belong here

I do not belong there

Questioning if I belong anywhere

I am growing and healing and thriving

Yet I still feel so lost

Things are changing

And they’re always getting better

But for some reason

Some days

I wake up

And I feel like my body is all wrong

Like I don’t belong

I don’t belong

And I am grasping for any sense of community

These feelings are fleeting

And mostly only last a moment

But they weigh on me

As I look around

And find myself grateful for the life I’ve found

For the safety and the consistency

But how long does it take

For these feelings to stay away

How long does it take for home to settle in your bones

And maybe these feelings only come

When I visit my first home

And surround myself with the people I’ve always known

And leaving them feels a lot like

Ripping a piece of my soul out again and again

I do not belong

I do not belong

And maybe that’s okay

Maybe I don’t need to be so desperate for a sense of community

Maybe we only get one of those in life

And maybe I’ll always feel like I’m not good enough

But maybe, just maybe,

It’ll all go away

And I won’t wake up some days

Feeling the weight of my grief

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

April 2nd, 2025

In the book store, in my new life,

I came across the book

“Stop Walking on Eggshells”

And my heart dropped

And I was in my old life

This book was a weapon

Used to push me to my breaking point

As they had done so many times before

The right words, the perfect amount of manipulation, the gaslighting,

They said “I got this book, and I think you’re abusing me”

Crushed, but broken already

I believed them.

I tore myself down

Tried to rebuild myself in their image

When they realized they couldn’t push me

To the edge

And convince me to jump off it

They left

And in my new life

I picked up this book

Fingers trembling

That little doubt in my chest telling me

“Maybe I was the problem the whole time”

And as I flipped through these pages

The ones that painted me a villain

I realized

I was the one walking on eggshells that whole time

The one who was on the ground begging to understand what I had done wrong

Why were they so angry with me

Why did they hate me

only for it to all smooth over when I promised to do exactly what they asked

And I wasn’t perfect all the time

Because no one is

But when I look at my new life

And the love I’m shown now

It’s comforting to know

That this book was just a weapon

And so I put it back on its shelf

And I find my new heart

And I ask him if he’s ready to go home

Even though home is with him

Wherever we are now

Because I’m not walking on eggshells anymore

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

February 19th, 2025

My friends have this joke

That they’re going to put me in a bubble

A sprain here

An infection there

Pneumonia then bronchitis again

That time I fractured the top of my foot,

How do you fracture the top of your foot?

A failing heart following more broken hearts

Than a 26 year old should know

Just call me bubble boy

Sometimes I wonder when

I won’t ever have to be the sick kid again

I grow tired of my weary bones

Tired of the ache in my soul

Tired of being so tired all the time

Tired of only finding the words

To write about grief

Sometimes I don’t know

What I’ve grieved more

The loss of people dear to my heart

Or myself

I was 12 when I first started grieving my youth, and my future, planning a funeral I wouldn’t attend

I was 19 when I finally realized I lived past 18

Planning for a future I didn’t know was mine,

Let alone a future I wasn’t sure I wanted

And my first heartbreak was my father

And my second heart break was too

And maybe we can sum it up by saying my first heartbreak after my father was a boy who was not kind to me

But I had only ever known cruelty to mean love

And it took me many more heartbreaks to learn

That cruelty and love do not share a home

And my continued heart break coming from the irony of

Being the sick kid

Again

And again

And again

And I scream that I don’t want to be the sick kid

But it’s the only thing I can write about

If I’m not writing about grief

And if I’m not writing about grief

Or being sick

Or feeling lost

Or the cruelty I can’t help but to see in every nook and cranny of the world

Than I can try to write about joy

But the joy is always in the little things

And the little things are better observed

Than wrapped up in font and portrayed to the world

But bubble boy can’t be the only legend I leave behind

And I can’t always be the kid who writes letters to their self about their fathers suicide

And I can’t always be the kid who writes about grief,

about how unfair it is that cancer took my grandma in the most painful way

Can’t always talk about how suicide was a disease that spread through the adults in my life before it reached me

And I can’t always talk about how I never wanted to survive

But now I do purely out of spite

And I can’t always write about the sadness in my bones

But I don’t know how to write about

The joy in the little things

How do I properly portray

That a cat sleeping on my shoulder

Snoring away,

Made me feel like being sick isn’t the end of the world

And how do I explain

That when a sunset is pink and purple

I feel like I’m living in a painting

Trapped in a beautiful moment forever

And how do I say

That I am so happy to be alive because snow falls the way it does

And each snowflake really is completely different

And what words do I use to say that

The love I’ve found myself surrounded with outweighs the grief of my body

How the laughter of my nephew fills my heart with sparkles

And how the smiles of the people I love settle in my bones and make me feel less heavy

And how do I say that I have finally forgiven my father and no longer feel guilty

Because life is so beautiful and maybe it’s not his fault it wasn’t for him

And how do I say

That I find joy in all these things

When at the end of the day

I’m still filled with sorrow

Because at 26

My body has failed me

And I’ll always be bubble boy

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

January 25th, 2025

My body isn’t mine

It belongs to the pain that has staked its claim

Long before I knew I wanted to be alive

And my body isn’t mine

It belongs to the government who decides whether I get to live or die

My body isn’t mine

It’s always belonged to a hypothetical man

I was 18 the first time I learned this

An abortion at 15 and the toll of birth control wasn’t enough to convince these doctors that I knew what I wanted

Because “your future husband might want kids”

And my pleas have fell on deaf ears all these years

Because my body isn’t mine

It’s belonged to the sorrow since before I knew what sorrow really was

The aching that rests in my bones

Rested in my soul before it reached the skin

And I never had a name for the pain in my brain

But it only took a decade to learn that the devil had a name

And my body isn’t mine

And my body isn’t mine

And I find myself clawing for the surface of whatever is suffocating me

Because my body isn’t mine and it never was and

It doesn’t matter

The government already laid claim

And I told myself it wouldn’t always be this way

And i remember in history class

Thinking “we have so much to learn from, there’s no way these things will happen again”

And thanks to the people who claim to be gods sheeple I have learned that the devil is the one who’s staked its claim

And maybe I don’t believe in god

But I used to believe in good

And I find myself facing the reality that sometimes good isn’t good enough

And sometimes god isn’t god enough

And sometimes the devil disguises itself as god

And sometimes the sheeple forget what their bible taught them

And maybe my body isn’t mine

But my choices always will be

and I’ve fought for so long I won’t stop fighting now

And my body isn’t mine

And my body isn’t mine

And my body isn’t mine

The government staked its claim

Before I was even born I was destined to fight a battle that was started over a hundred years ago

And my body isn’t mine

And my body isn’t mine

It belongs to the pain

It belongs to the government

It belongs to a hypothetical man I’ll never meet

Because a man who decides my body isn’t mine

Isn’t a man I’d let in

And my body isn’t mine

And maybe it’s belongs to the devil

Because the devil is in our government and

It’s in the people

And the sheeple of god are so far astray they don’t realize they’ve brought the devil to power

And they don’t realize it’s evil they’ve empowered

And my body isn’t mine

But my choices always will be and

I have been fighting my whole life

And I will continue to fight

Because my body isn’t mine

My body isn’t mine

So it doesn’t matter if I lose the fight

As long as the children of tomorrow

Don’t have to fight the battles of yesterday

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

December 21st, 2024

The first boy I thought I loved

Wouldn’t talk to me at school

We hung out in secret

And I later realized he was embarrassed to be with me

But what else can you expect when you’re 12

And the second boy I thought I loved

Was the first one to hurt me

And it took me years to realize it wasn’t my fault

For trusting him and I can’t blame myself for what he did to me

Because I was only 13

And the first girl I thought I loved

Didn’t know I loved her

Because when your 13

With the family I had

You keep that in the closet

and that wasn’t my fault either

And the third boy I thought I loved

Was the first to teach me

That age is definitely more than just a number

And it took me years to learn

He took advantage of my naivety

And I was almost 14 and him 22 and that wasn’t to be blamed on me

And the second girl I thought I loved

Was 2 years my senior

And she was a good friend to me

And that’s when I learned that platonic and romantic love

Feel the same when you’re not taught what love is

And the fourth boy I thought i loved

Was the first to break my heart

Because that’s when I learned that even the sweetest talkers

Can be a cheater

And it took me years to realize

I was just an easy prize for him

Because when I was almost 19

I wouldn’t have looked twice at someone who was barely 15

And the third girl I thought I loved

Almost loved me back

But she was years away from getting out of her closet

And I can’t blame her for that

And the first boy I truly loved

Actually loved me back

But first I spent my days intoxicated in a daze,

Almost forgetting when he let his 26 year old friend drug and take me

But eventually his love came,

But it came in the form of control

And sometimes violence

And pushing me further into addiction

But that’s how my dad loved

And that felt okay to me

And the second boy I truly loved

Was out of my reach

Until we did something that hurt everyone around us

And he did something that truly hurt me

And for years every love song was about him

And it was years before we found each other again

And by then it was too late

And the first girl I truly loved

Also loved me back

But it was the wrong time and the wrong place

And My inability to stay sober

Pushed us far apart

And the third boy I truly loved

Was the first to change my life

And my naivety, fresh in my sobriety,

Erased all the lessons I’d learned before

And three years down the line I’m on the ground

Begging to understand what I did wrong

Wondering if i was better off gone

And still fought when he asked for a divorce

Because I guess I never learned

And so I swore off love

Because I realized maybe it wasn’t for me

And I flirted with death

And i flirted with relapse

But I stayed sober

And I stayed alive

And I started my life over

This time to live for me and me alone

And I forgot about love

Until love found me

And at 23

I finally found a true love

One without pain

And control

One without heart break

Without my naivety being a pawn

And I finally learned

That maybe I never loved before

And maybe i was never loved before

And maybe it was all a test of character

Or maybe it was supposed to make me stronger

And maybe it was supposed to break me

Or maybe it was meant to drive me crazy

Maybe I was never supposed to get sober

Maybe my fathers path was supposed to be mine

And maybe I broke the space time continuum

Or maybe destiny was here all along

All I know is the first boy I truly loved

Truly loves me

And it’s put into perspective

The childish love I let myself fall into before

And the toxicity I translated as normal

Because it was what I was exposed to before

And maybe the first boy I truly love

Truly loves me

So that I can learn

That my path is mine to pave

And my fathers path

And my mothers path

Are supposed to end with me

And I can only hope my siblings

Don’t have to learn the same way I did

Because I wouldn’t wish that life on anyone

All I can do is pray

That they find the life I have now

Without all the turmoil

And trauma

And heart break

That they start by living life for themselves

Because once I did that

Everything else fell into place

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

December 16th, 2024

My notebook lays empty

The words sitting in my chest

How do I get them out

It’s like I forgot how to scream

It’s like I let myself go so far

That I forgot how to breathe

I feel myself falling backwards

My brain a torment

My hear tormented

I’m 15 again

Crying on the bathroom floor

Because nothing makes sense

And I feel so alone

But I’m surround by people

And my notebook lays empty

And I find myself wanting to reach inside my veins

To pull out the things I can feel inside of me

I’m 15 again

Tired of being sick

Tired of being tired

Tired of not knowing what the fuck is going on in my brain and in my bones

And I’m crying again

And I’m so tired of crying

And I’m so tired of feeling full of poison

Or is it venom

Am i destroying everything I know

Because I can’t hurt if there was nothing to begin with

And I am 15 again

But I am not

I am facing 26 and I am happier than I’ve ever been

Planning for a future that doesn’t end with a coffin

And yet sometimes

The dread of it all weighs me down

They tell me I’m sick again

A different doctor

A different bag of tricks

A different sense of burden

Maybe this time

It’s not just my brain

And maybe this time

They can do something

And maybe this time I won’t

Be 15 again

Crying on the bathroom floor

Wondering the least painful way to end it all

And maybe I won’t be 19 again

Just trying to convince myself to be sober

And maybe I won’t be 22 again begging someone to love me like they promised

And maybe I won’t be 23 starting my whole life over, again

And maybe I’ll be 26 and I’ll be happy and Ill be thankful for whatever I have coming to me

Because I’m truly just happy to be alive

But why do I feel like I have to keep reminding myself that I’m happy to be alive

Why can’t I just feel happy to be alive

And why doesn’t feel so heavy sometimes

And why do I feel like I have nothing going for me

Why do I feel like I’m Not where I should be

Why do I have to keep reminding myself that I’m only two years in

That this is a new path and a new destination

And there’s a new plan in it’s beginning phases

And I can’t compare myself to the others around me

Because not everyone has started over 3 times by 23 and

Maybe it’s okay

That sometimes I feel like I’m falling backwards

Because really

It’s just December

And my heart feels heavy

Because it’s darker longer

And colder often

And maybe I’m just fine

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

December 16th, 2024

I find myself falling backwards

My brain not quite grasping what it means

To be alive

Not just to be alive

But to want to be alive

15 year old me

Would have sworn

I wouldn’t have made it past 18

And i wonder what 15 year old me would think

If they knew I tried again

But that time

I drove myself to the hospital at 2am

Towel wrapped around my arm

As the doctor questioned how I managed

With all the blood I loss

And I sheepishly admitted

I’d taken a lot of coke

Because i figured if the blood loss didn’t kill me

Maybe that would

And within 20 minutes

I realized I didn’t wanna die

I just wanted to feel something besides empty

And I spent the next few years filling myself with things

That didn’t benefit me

And I may have gotten sober

But it took me years to truly get over

The self pity and the melancholy

Of someone who didn’t plan for a future

And I settled for years

For things that continued to poison me

And I wonder

What 15 year old me would think

If they knew in my 25th year

I got so scared of dying

And leaving behind the wonders of life I’d found

That I went to the doctor

Only to find out

My body had it out for me

And I might get my wish after all

And i wonder if 15 year old me would find it ironic

That I tried so hard to save my own life

That I forgot to take care of my health

Because 15 year old me

Thought if I didn’t take myself out

My body would

So I filled it with poison hoping to sweeten the deal

And 25 year old me is reaping the consequences

And I wonder

And I wonder

If I ever really thought someday I’d love to be alive

And I wonder and I wonder

If maybe I died that day

But the universe didn’t want me to get off that easy

And so I’ve found myself in an alternate timeline

Where everyday i wonder

What’s going to get me first

And I no longer

Fill myself with poison

But what is it they say

About cutting the head off a rotten fish

And sometimes I wonder

If this is how it was supposed to be

And sometimes I wonder

If maybe I cheated along the way

And I wonder if the irony is

That the poison has always came from

Within me

And that’s why I spent so many years

Filling myself with people who didn’t benefit me

And I wonder

If I’m falling backwards

Or if I’m just sad

Because I tried so hard to save my own life

To not even know what I’m facing next

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

September 5th, 2024

My grandma died yesterday

The anger building up in me has turned to a bitter sorrow

The relief that she is not suffering anymore cannot cast away the weight of grief,

A weight that has been building up over the month,

I find myself still wanting to face god

Wanting to ask him how this all fits into his plan

The irony is not lost on me

A child losing their parent suddenly and unexpectedly to suicide as a teen,

A way of losing someone I always thought would be the worst,

After watching two of the people closest to me go through it around the same time i watched my sister go through it with me,

I thought that was the hardest thing to go through

Until I watched my stepdad

Slowly lose his mom to a cancer that turned painful

As we watched her deteriorate

As we did our best to be helpful and make her comfortable

As we did what we could to help her

And as she suffered anyway

I want to face god

I want to ask him how people who have never done any wrong

Can die so slowly

I will fight god,

In an arena to the death

Give thunderdome a new meaning

I will kill god

I will have him suffer the way he has let his people suffer

Because on a small scale its my grandma

On the large scale this is a metaphor for the world

How the people who have done no harm

The people who try their best

Still suffer at the hands of things out of their control

How evil and greed and sorrow and disease outweigh

All the good, as hard as we try to make it bigger then everything

As hard as we try to save the planet we were left with,

The damage done before is too far gone

And as hard as we try to protect the innocent

The guilty have all the power

And as hard as we try to undo all the damage

The damage is too far done

Like my grandmother dying just before 79

a slow and painful death

That started when she beat cancer the first time

Only for the cancer to come back

Only for the chemo to not work

It almost feels like the chemo made it worse

And that feels like the largest fuck you from the universe

So yeah, Once again

I will fight god, I will tell him to face me like a man and meet me outside

I will bring down on him all the pain and suffering he has imposed on our world

Because everyone tells me its all apart of his plan

And i cannot get behind the idea that this is all supposed to happen

Because how the fuck does that make sense

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

August 2nd, 2024

“What would you do, if god is real, and at the end of it all you have to face him?”

I’ve been asked many times

And often the only answer I’ve had was

“We will find out if it comes to it”

But as I grow older

And sorrow has made its way deep into my bones

The only answer I have now

Is I’d fight him

I’d tell him to meet me out back so we can settle things like men

Like the warrior he forced me to be

My mother calls me to tell me my grandmas cancer is back and the chemo will give her 8 months

And it works for awhile

And then my mother calls me to tell me my grandmas chemo isn’t working and she only has 8 weeks

And then my mother calls me to tell me it’s worse then they thought and we’d be lucky to get 4 weeks and all I want to do is scream

I want to curse at the sky and throw my hands at anything they’ll make contact with and

I want to kill god

I want to make him suffer the way he lets good people suffer because how the fuck is this all about his plan when bad people don’t suffer the way good people do

And I find myself feeling the anger I’ve swallowed for so long

I find myself losing control over the sorrow as it seeps its way into my bones because how the fuck am I supposed to watch someone suffer

How am I supposed to focus on the time I have left when we don’t even know what that looks like

And I always thought the sudden deaths were the worst

I always thought losing three people to suicide in a two year span would be the most painful loss I’d endure

I thought watching my friends lose their battle to drugs would be the hardest deaths to endure

But watching someone who’s never harmed another soul

Suffer

I want to fight god

I want to take my pain and make it his because I can’t fathom how this is his plan

I can’t fathom how anyone could look at this and say this is all for the better because my grandma isn’t the only one

Good people are dying all the time at the hands of evil people and evil things and cancer is just the biggest metaphor for how fucked it all it is and I find myself angry

I find myself wanting to throw my fists at anything that will hurt because I need this pain to be something I can control and

How the fuck

Am I supposed to process this

So at the end of the day

I want to kill god

I want to break him down like he has left us to become and I want him to feel the pain he has let our people endure

As I watch my grandma deteriorate

As I watch her grow frail and weak

She can hardly stand

She can’t even eat

Every time she coughs a piece of my soul hurts

Because how is this gods plan

The doctors say they’ve never seen a cancer act this way

The doctors say they don’t know why the chemo didn’t work

And before anyone tries to tell me this is Gods plan

And if you ask me god is a coward

So if I have to face him at the end of my life

Before I ask him the purpose for the suffering and the strife

Before I ask him why he gave me a faulty body that only ever failed me

Before I ask him why my father was inflicted with a battle he could never win

Before I ask him why my grandmother had to suffer in the end

I’m going to fight him

Gladiator style

In a fight to the death

Because if anyone is angry enough to kill god

It’s me,

All the anger I’ve swallowed over the years has to be good for something.

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

Bubble Boy

That’s the joke

My friends always say

“You need to be put into a bubble”

And for awhile it was funny

But as time goes on

And the health crises I face

Never seem to end

Or sometimes they end

Only to be replaced with something new

I grow tired

I always said my heart sucked

But that was when it was something I knew

I had a chance to out grow

And if only I knew

What I out grew

Was nothing compared to what I’d grow into

The doctor says

“You’re not in active heart failure, now, at least”

And the voice in my head goes

“That means you could be”

And he explains to me what it means

But all I hear is the fear pulsing

And I put on a smile

And say “okay that sounds manageable”

Knowing in my heart, my heart that’s betraying me, that it’s really dependent on everything else

Either way, the talk of pacemakers and heart transplants in the future ring in my ears, blood clots and strokes and everything to fuel my fears

And I question whether or not this is fair

I have not always been the best,

I used to be cruel,

Taking the cruelty of the world and matching it

Instead of fighting it

So maybe it is,

Maybe no matter how kind you become,

How much you heal and try to heal,

Maybe no matter how much you try to undo what you’ve done,

The universe doesn’t forget the beginning,

The years of anger and hatred,

Of cruelty and vindictiveness

The doctor says

The first steps are

A heart monitor for a week

Genetic counseling as soon as possible

they need to find out

If it’s always been this way

Or if it recently became this way

“We will keep a close eye on it, but if you notice or feel anything new or weird, come in right away”

I’m only 25

I knew I spent many years not wanting to be alive

But now I do

And I finally found peace and happiness

I finally chose joy and kindness

And for some reason it feels like I’m still being punished

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

March 23rd, 2024

I’m singing along

To the playlist of old favorite songs

From back in the day,

Before things changed

I’m singing along

As the artist sings

“Im not going to make it to 25”

I remember being 18

And feeling that lyric,

Hit my bones

Like all I planned for

Was a funeral for my 21st birthday

And it dawned on me,

I’m months into 25,

And the only thing I can think,

Is damn I’m so fucking glad to be alive.

I remember back before things changed,

The kind of recklessness I thrived on,

The kind of substances i relied on,

Driving too fast in my car,

Hoping I wouldn’t make it far,

Back before things made sense,

Back when I had no sense of the future,

Back before things changed.

But now things have changed,

The lyric is just a lyric,

A relic of my past,

5 years sober and now I don’t drive too fast,

I value everything and hold on tight,

Because I made it to 25,

And I’m glad to be alive,

I look for the beauty in everything,

Even the things that don’t make sense,

Or the things that I can’t control,

The joy hits my bones,

Instead of the sorrow,

And I am so glad I stuck around for every tomorrow.

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

March 13th, 2024

Every day I wake up

Wondering if today is the day

The Second World War

Started a little like this

I wonder when it’s our turn

My heart is breaking

Everyday

The numbers rising

The dead will outweigh the living

It’s so unfair

But life never was fair

And instead of teaching us how to make life fair

They conditioned us to count ourselves lucky.

In high school you learn about war

In adulthood you learn about war

They say “it’s not here,

It doesn’t effect me,

I don’t care”

And then you know whose side they’d have been on before.

Every morning I wake up,

And I brush my teeth

And I brush my hair

And my heart breaks

There’s a little kid somewhere

Who’s just begging for his mom and dad to come back

There’s a parent somewhere holding their baby for the last time screaming for help

A family somewhere wishing they would be saved

Every morning I wake up and I feel so angry

What can I do, besides keep speaking.

I remember

When I first learned I can’t trust our government.

I was 12 when my history teacher told us unaltered truths and I realized we have always been the bad guys

How are we the bad guys?

I thought we were supposed to be great.

Greatness is not this.

Greatness is not paying for war.

“War

War

What is it good for

It keeps the rich rich,

And kills off the poor.”

I am angry

And I don’t know what else to do,

I keep praying, that this is the last straw

I keep hoping for the revolution to be the first step

But they’ve conditioned everyone so well

Every where I turn this is starting to look like hell.

My heart is breaking and all I can do is write

My heath is breaking and all I can do is try to fight,

My heart is breaking and all I can do is hope that the children of tomorrow, learn about war in high school,

And never learn about it again.

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

March 11th, 2024 (Shadows)

There’s a shadow of me left behind in the places that made me

There’s a shadow of me left behind in the places that broke me

There’s a shadow of myself following me around,

There’s a shadow of myself, it’s trying to break me down.

There’s a shadow in the closet that looks like my fears,

There’s no fear left in my bones,

It’s hiding under the bed now.

There’s a shadow of myself haunting me now,

There’s a shadow

There’s a shadow

There’s a shadow

My dad died when I was 15

My dad killed himself when I was 15

There’s a shadow of myself sitting on his grave,

I left a letter for a dead man,

There’s a shadow of myself sitting on his grave,

How do you forgive a dead man

There’s a shadow of myself sitting in San Francisco,

There once was a future where this shadow lays,

There’s a shadow of myself on a bench on Embarcadero,

There was a moment where I accepted my future was not the one I had planned,

Theres a shadow of myself lost to the person who only ever tried to break me,

There’s a shadow of myself somewhere around,

There’s a shadow of myself that never got sober

There’s a shadow of myself that never recovered

There’s a shadow of myself that succeeded, that shadow is a skeleton,

There’s a shadow of myself everywhere I look,

The person I used to be , the person I never got to be,

There’s a shadow of myself around every corner.

There’s a park near my old high school

There’s a shadow of myself haunting its corners,

There’s a shadow of myself wondering when that man will give back what he took from me

There’s a shadow

there’s a shadow

there’s a shadow

There’s a place where we used to go to escape,

On top of the mountain overlooking the cityscape,

Theres a shadow sitting there waiting for me to come back,

To pick up the piece of myself I left behind,

This shadow engulfs my whole hometown,

There’s a shadow where my childhood should be,

There’s a shadow whispering to me

It tried to tell me I never truly changed

There’s a shadow trying to break me down

It wants me back in the dark where all of my shadows can be found

There’s a shadow

There’s a shadow

There’s a light

There’s a light in my soul,

It’s seeping out my pores,

It’s not quite bright enough the shadows disappear,

But it’s bright enough to remind me the shadows are only that

Shadows.

I am not who I used to be,

I am not who I was supposed to be,

I am exactly who I need to be.

The shadows don’t bother me anymore.

I think I’m starting to bother them

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

I hope you don’t understand this

I wrap my fingers around my wrist

I hope you don’t understand this

I hear him ask “are you on drugs? Eat a sandwich” the irony of my drug dealer saying this is not lost on me, that was 7 years ago.

I am better now

But I still wrap my fingers around my wrist.

I eat the peanut butter out of the jar

I hear my mom say

“Do you know how many calories are in that?”

15 year old me puts it away

25 year old me takes another bite.

I’m better now

But I still hear my moms voice

I hope you don’t understand this,

My pants are too tight,

I feel the band against my skin

And the ball well up in my chest,

I remind myself this is my healthy body

These are old jeans

I shouldn’t fit into them

But my chest still feels tight

I still want to fit into them

I’m 13 again, crying on my bedroom floor

I don’t look like the other kids

That was then

This is now

I am healthy now,

I want to get rid of the voice in my head

I hope you don’t understand this

I am healthy now,

I can’t get rid of that last bit of dread

The part of me that’s voiced by society and embodied by my mother

I am healthy now,

The voice in my head tells me it’s not enough to be healthy if you’re not skinny

I hope you don’t understand this

The doctor looks at me

“You could probably lose some weight”

He says,

As if some weight can explain away everything,

“Here’s some tips”

He says to the 17 year old kid in his office who’s already wearing their skin like a loose coat.

He says to the 22 year old who’s finally stopped letting food be something I needed to control

He says to every person asking for real help

I hope you don’t understand this

I hope you don’t understand this

“You look… healthy”

They say

They want to tell me they can tell I’ve gained weight

They want to tell me I no longer look like an empty shell of a person

But they know if the words leave their mouth,

It’ll feel like a million daggers.

I hope you don’t understand this

I hope you don’t understand this

I hope you don’t understand what it’s like to feel a stranger in your own skin

And to try to crawl out of that skin every chance you get

I hope you don’t have to ban scales from your home

And I hope you know you’re perfect just the way you are

And I hope your mothers voice doesn’t play on repeat in your head

And I hope you don’t wrap your fingers around your wrist

I hope you don’t understand this

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

January 1st, 2024

Thank you,

Younger me

For staying strong in the face of everything going wrong,

For never giving up when you felt like you had no strength left,

For persevering when the world tried to break every ounce of hope you had.

Thank you for staying alive,

Thank you for making the decision to get sober,

Thank you for deciding to live instead of survive,

Thank you younger me,

For finding strength when it seemed like there was none,

Thank you for fighting every day,

Thank you for all your sacrifices,

For all the bad days and good,

Thank you for carrying us this far,

For never giving up hope,

You’ve always held onto hope,

We turn 25 soon,

I know you didn’t think we would,

But you stayed strong,

We stayed strong,

Thank you younger me,

For holding on.

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]

December 12th, 2023 (not a poem really)

I find myself concealing my inner sorrow,

The world is hurting more then I ever could,

And it feels selfish to be sad when life is better then I ever knew it could be but,

My heart is aching.

And maybe it’s seasonal depression,

And maybe it’s the holidays,

They’ve been hard since Robert died,

And that was 10 years ago,

Maybe it’s being so far from all my friends,

Not knowing how to make new ones close by.

Maybe it’s the feeling that no matter what I do,

It’s never enough.

Maybe it’s the ghosts of love past,

Reminding me I’m not shit and I never will be,

Because maybe I never was.

Maybe I always have been a waste of space and a lost cause,

Maybe I forced myself into places I didn’t belong and convinced myself I did.

Maybe I long for something that was never meant to be mine,

Maybe this life was never meant to be mine.

I am not saying I am unhappy,

My heart is filled with as much joy as it is sorrow,

I am happy with my life, where I am and who I’m with,

Everything really does feel exactly as it should be,

And maybe I just miss my friends,

Maybe I just miss the people who were gone from us too soon,

Maybe I just miss always having places to go that weren’t work and home.

Maybe that comes with having the same friends since you were 11 and then leaving them all behind, three times.

And I’ve been here for two years,

And met the person I want to spend the rest of my life with but,

Romantic love doesn’t heal all things,

And It’s hard not to feel like a default friend,

Walking into an already established friend group,

Back to feeling like I’ve forced myself into someplace I don’t belong,

It’s hard when the only people who wanna see you are hundreds of miles away,

And this happens every year, in every place I’ve been,

I find myself feeling lonely, because I don’t know how to make friends,

And it’s silly, being almost 25, worrying about making friends,

But it feels like a part of me is missing,

and I left it in Arizona,

And I can’t figure out how to replace it,

And I can’t go back for it either,

Instead I just conceal the sorrow,

And act like being lonely doesn’t bother me,

When in reality I miss my friends

-Kat TheAlien

[kat-thealienpoetry]